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OCL 2018 New Faculty

13 November 17 -- jsuess

We're excited to have some fantastic new faculty members joining us for Oxford Cultural Leaders, our leadership programme in partnership with the Said Business School, in 2018. Let's introduce some of them!

Applications for the 2018 course are currently open, closing 5 January 2018. Find out more.

Kaywin Feldman, the Nivin and Duncan MacMillan Director and President of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia)

Kaywin Feldman has been the Nivin and Duncan MacMillan Director and President of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) since 2008. Feldman oversees the museum’s staff of 250, its fine-art collection of over 89,000 objects, its 473,000-square-foot facility, and an annual operating budget of $32 million. She serves on the boards of National Arts Strategies (NAS), the Chipstone Foundation, and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), and is a member of the Bizot Group. Feldman is past president of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), and a past chair of AAM.

During Feldman’s tenure, Mia has strengthened its national presence with ambitious special exhibitions, including More Real?: Art in the Age of Truthiness; Rembrandt in America; and China’s Terracotta Warriors. Feldman led the creation of a contemporary art department, the reinstallation and reconception of the museum’s African art galleries, and the launch of inventive programming such as Mia’s Birthday Year. She has overseen innovative curatorial projects such as Globalization, the first in a series of themed installations creatively combining contemporary and historic artworks from all areas of the permanent collection; an experimental period room installation project; and an ongoing exhibition series, New Pictures, that exposes emerging photographers pushing the boundaries of the medium.

Feldman has championed the strategic and effective use of digital technologies to support and enhance audience engagement. Feldman’s team has established a reputation for being on the leading edge of digital technology in the museum sector through such recent accomplishments as the complete relaunch of www.artsmia.org, the implementation of a new app, the ambitious ArtStories project, and the launch of the prestigious 3M Art and Technology Prize.

Under Feldman’s leadership, the collection has been strengthened through strategic acquisitions and gifts, including works by: James McNeill Whistler, Edgar Degas, Ai Wei Wei, Henri Matisse, Théodore Rousseau, Do Ho Suh, Mark Dion, Vik Muniz, Guercino, Eugène Delacroix, JMW Turner, William Kentridge, Georgia O’Keeffe, Joel Shapiro, and Cornelis van Haarlem. In addition, the Japanese collection has grown by 133% through gifts from two major collectors.

Feldman has served as an exhibition curator and recently curated The Habsburgs: Rarely Seen Masterpieces from Europe’s Greatest Dynasty, a major traveling exhibition organized with the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. In 2009, she curated In Pursuit of a Masterpiece, a companion exhibition to The Louvre and the Masterpiece.

Feldman previously served as director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, in Tennessee, from 1999 to 2007, and received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Memphis College of Art in 2008. She received an MA in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London, an MA from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of London, and a BA (summa cum laude) in classical archaeology from the University of Michigan. Her specialties are Dutch and Flemish art and Greek and Roman archaeology.

Darren Henley, Chief Executive, Arts Council England

Darren previously spent 25 years working in radio, leading Classic FM for fifteen years, first as Managing Editor and then as Managing Director. He was appointed an OBE in 2013 for services to music.

Darren has chaired or sat on a range of government advisory boards in the area of cultural education. His two independent government reviews into music education (2011) and cultural education (2012) resulted in the creation of England's first National Plan for Music Education, new networks or Music Education Hubs and Heritage Schools, and Museums and Schools programme, the BFI Film Academy and the National Youth Dance Company.

He is the author or co-author of thirty books, including 'The Virtuous Circle: Why Creativoty and Cultural Education Count'. It argues that an excellent cultural education is the right of everyone, bringing personal, social and commercial advantages that can only benefit the lives of all individuals in our society. In 2016, Darren's most recent book was published. 'The Arts Divided: Why Investment in Culture Pays' looks i depth at seven key benefits that art and culture bring to our lives.

Darren joined the Arts Council in 2015.

Listen to Darren speak about People, Place and Power.

Catherine Mallyon, Executive Director, Royal Shakespeare Company

Catherine Mallyon has been executive director of the Royal Shakespeare Company since 2012 and is also a governor of the company and a member of its board.

She was previously deputy chief executive of Southbank Centre, the largest single-run arts centre in the world. In this role she led all its operational activity, including major projects such as re-opening the Royal Festival Hall after its refurbishment in 2007 and the renewal of Hayward Gallery in 2010.

In her earlier career in arts management, Catherine was general manager of arts and theatres at Reading Borough Council where she managed all theatre and arts operations, programmed drama and classical music for the Hexagon and Concert Hall, and co-produced the WOMAD festival.

Previously, she was general manager at Oxford Playhouse including the Burton Taylor Studio Theatre. She is now a Board Trustee of the Playhouse.Catherine trained in general arts administration on Arts Council England's bursary programme, after five years in the City as a trader and analyst.

Richard Ovenden, Bodley's Librarian, Univeristy of Oxford

Richard Ovenden is Bodley's Librarian, the 25th person to hold the title, which is the senior executive position of the Bodleian Libraries. Richard was educated at Durham University and University College London, and has worked as a professional librarian since 1985. He has served on the staff of Durham University Library, the House of Lords Library, the National Library of Scotland (as Deputy Head of the Rare Books Section), the University of Edinburgh (as Director of Collections), and since 2003 at the Bodleian Libraries (first as Keeper of Special Collections, from 2011-2014 as Deputy Librarian, the Bodleian Libraries, then from 2014 as Bodley’s Librarian).

Richard sits on the Board of Research Libraries UK and of the Consortium of European Research Libraries, where he is Treasurer, and is currently President of the Digital Preservation Coalition. He has published widely on the history of collecting, the history of photography and on professional concerns of the library, archive, and information world, and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2015. Recently Richard headed Oxford’s involvement with the Google mass digitization project. He holds a Professorial Fellowship at Balliol College, Oxford.

Watch Richard talk at the Library Futures Symposium.

Kathleen Soriano

Kathleen Soriano began her career at the Royal Academy of Arts over 30 years ago. In 1989 she joined the National Portrait Gallery, where as Director of Exhibitions & Collections she was also responsible for national and international programmes. In 2004 she became one of the first cohort of Clore Leadership Fellows, working at the South Bank Centre and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. In February 2006 she became Director of Compton Verney, Warwickshire. January 2009 saw her appointed Artistic Director at the Royal Academy. In 2014 she set up her own artistic advisory and strategic consultancy company. In addition she has recently acted as Interim Director at Firstsite, Colchester and is currently Artistic Director of the Jakober Foundation, Mallorca. She has lectured and written extensively in her field and her book Madam and Eve on women artists, is due for publication in April 2018. Her broadcast activities include the four series of Portrait/Landscape Artist of the Year for SkyArts.

She is currently Chair of the Liverpool Biennial, and a specialist advisor for the National Trust. Previously she has held roles on the strategic committee of the Grand Palais, Paris, the Wellcome Collection exhibition advisory group, chaired the Churches Conservation Trust’s Art Advisory group, was a founder member of Women Leaders in Museums Network and is currently on the Advisory Board of 2 Temple Place and the editorial board of Apollo.